English gentleman

“ You cannot astonish an English gentleman. If a man goes into a fit at his side, or a servant drops a dish upon his shoulder, or he hears that the house is on fire, he sets down his wine-glass with the same deliberation. He has made up his mind what to do in all possible cases, and he does it. He is cold at a first introduction, and may bow stiffly, (which he always does) in drinking wine with you, but it is his manner; and he would think an Englishman out of his senses who should bow down to his very plate and smile as a Frenchman does on a similar occasion. ”

“ The truth is, there is real heart in the civilities which are proffered, and where politeness is rooted in sincerity, it is always considerate, inventive and unfailing. An English gentleman, whatever his circumstances, as soon as he knows that you are entitled to his attentions, does all that he can to make you really happy. ”

“ Your honour is an Englishman, an English gentleman, and of course could live all the days of your life at Llangollen without being a drunkard, he he! Who ever heard of an Englishman, especially an English gentleman, being a drunkard, he he he! ”

“ Of an English gentleman, Evan. I like that better.”
“Would you rather be called a true English lady than a true English woman, Rose?”
“Don’t think I would, my dear,” she answered pertly; “but ‘gentleman’ always means more than ‘man’ to me.” ”

“ Or if, by some neglect, either of his own or his parents, a young English gentleman of fortune has allowed the first years of youth to fly unimproved, and has attained the age of seventeen or eighteen with little literary knowledge, I know no place where he may have a better chance of recovering what he has lost than in this city. He may have a choice of men of eminence, in every branch of literature, to assist him in his studies, a great proportion of whom are men of genius, and as amiable in their manners as they are eminent in their particular professions. ”

“ With regard to the tone of society in general, I think every stranger must be struck with its elevation, whether intellectually or morally considered. An English gentleman is generally highly educated. ”

“ What an English gentleman is cannot be stated concisely; you would have to be acquainted, firstly, with an English club-waiter, or with a booking-clerk at a railway station, or, above all, with a policeman. A gentleman, that is a measured combination of silence, courtesy, dignity, sport, newspapers and honesty. The man sitting opposite you in the train will anger you for two hours by not regarding you as worthy of a glance ”

“ An English fine gentleman distinguishes himself from the rest of the world, by the whole tenor of his conversation, more than by any particular part of it; so that though you are sensible he excels, you are at a loss to tell in what, and have no remarkable civilities and compliments to pitch on as a proof of his politeness. ”

“ Permeated in a high degree by civilization, it is yet untouched by the desire which one finds in the Englishman, in proportion as he rises in the world, to approximate to the figure of the gentleman. On the other hand, a nettete, a faculty of exposition, such as the English gentleman is rarely either blessed or cursed with. ”

“ The modern gentleman, particularly the modern English gentleman, has become so central and important in these books, and through them in the whole of our current literature and our current mode of thought, that certain qualities of his, whether original or recent, essential or accidental, have altered the quality of our English comedy. ”

“ Which was the most splendid spectacle ever witnessed:—the opening feast of Prince George in London, or the resignation of Washington? Which is the noble character for after-ages to admire;—yon fribble dancing in lace and spangles, or yonder hero who sheathes his sword after a life of spotless honour, a purity unreproached, a courage indomitable, and a consummate victory? Which of these is the true gentleman? What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to have lofty aims, to lead a pure life, to keep your honour virgin; to have the esteem of your fellow citizens, and the love of your fireside ”

“ There are few better working types within the reach of commonplace men than that of an English gentleman with his conventional tastes, standard of honour, religion, sympathies, ideals, opinions and instincts. He is not likely to be either a saint or a philosopher, but he is tolerably sure to be both an honourable and a useful man, with a fair measure of good sense and moderation, and with some disposition towards public duties. ”

“ Their traditional faith in compromise, their traditional dread of ideas, their traditional habit of acting first and reasoning afterwards, has made the English system a hopelessly confused bundle of semi-efficiency and semi-inefficiency—just as it has made the best English social type a gentleman, but a gentleman absolutely conditioned, tempered, and supplemented by a flunky. ”

“ If he is disposed to go abroad, who has the money, or the education, to give facility and advantage to travel in every region like the English gentleman?—Such are the privileges and pleasures attendant on the country gentleman of England. ”

“ You said to me, 'Wherever an English gentleman sees need, perplexity, distress, thither he flies with an eager heart to assist.' The great Master of all, who worked the transformation of society, He did not become a high priest or a ruler of the Sanhedrim when He sought man's regeneration ”

“ Not one among us has anything against you as an English gentleman. We hold your person as sacred as that of a dearest friend. I do not know any of my friends who would not guard it with his life, if he found it in danger. ”

“ To the first I beseech your Majesty to consider, that there is no other Latin word proper to signify a gentleman born, but nobilis. As for generosus, as I have read in good writers Vinum generosum, for a good cup of wine and equus generosus for a courageous horse, so I never heard generosus alone so used, to signify a gentleman born, but only on the gross Latin current in Westminster Hall, and, if I had set down generosus Anglus, it would have then construed rather a gentle Englishman than an English gentleman. ”

“ What fact more conspicuous in modern history, than the creation of the gentleman? Chivalry is that, and loyalty is that, and, in English literature, half the drama, and all the novels, from Sir Philip Sidney to Sir Walter Scott, paint this figure. The word gentleman, which, like the word Christian, must hereafter characterize the present and the few preceding centuries, by the importance attached to it, is a homage to personal and incommunicable properties. ”

“ Cheerful and amiable, kind and generous, ever ready to sympathize with the joys and sorrows of those around him, a true friend, and a loyal antagonist, possessing considerable mental culture and wide intellectual sympathies without any tinge of pedantry, he has represented worthily the type of the genuine English gentleman. ”

“ A true gentleman, you see, is very nearly the most sympathetic type which evolution has produced among the pitiful group of creatures who are at this moment making such a noise in the world. Amid the horrible wickedness of the species, the English have established an oasis of courtesy and phlegm. ”

“ Add to this the fact, that it is impossible for an ordinary native to understand the motives and springs of action of an English gentleman, and it will be seen how impossible it is for the two to be on intimate friendly relations. ”

“ It has been taken when he was in the fulness of manhood, and represents him as fresh complexioned, with a regular and rather handsome cast of features, suggesting the idea that comeliness of face and figure blended with courage and courtesy,—the characteristics of an old English gentleman. ”

“ The term gentleman is, perhaps, one of the most indefinite in the English language. George IV prided himself in being the finest gentleman in Europe; every peer of the realm is a gentleman; every judge, member of parliament, and magistrate is a gentleman; every clergyman, lawyer, and doctor is a gentleman; every merchant and tradesman is a gentleman; every farmer and mechanic is a gentleman; every draper’s errand-boy and tailor’s apprentice is a gentleman ”

“ Imagine a gentleman, certainly somewhat dark, but of a pleasant warm hue, speaking English with a slight and rather odd foreign accent, every inch a man of the world, and armed with manners so patronisingly superior that I am at a loss to name their parallel in England. A butler perhaps rides as high over the unbutlered, but then he sets you right with a reserve and a sort of sighing patience which one is often moved to admire. And again, the abstract butler never stoops to familiarity. But the coloured gentleman will pass you a wink at a time ”

“ CHAPTER V Calypso.
Of course a glance, and the first sound of his voice, had told me that I had to do with a gentleman, one of those vagabond English gentlemen in exile who form a type peculiar, I think, to the English race; men that are a curious combination of aristocrat and gipsy, soldier, scholar, and philosopher; men of good family, who have drifted everywhere, seen and seen through everything, but in all their wanderings have never lost their sense and habit of "form," their boyish zest in living, their humorous stoicism, and, above all, their lordly accent. ”

“ The English seem to have an instinct of each other’s position in life. A gentleman enters a crowd, looks about him, makes up his mind at once from whom an advance of civility would be agreeable or the contrary, gets near the best set without seeming to notice them, and if any chance accident brings on conversation with his neighbor, you may be certain he is sure of his man.
We had about a hundred persons on board, (Miss Inverarity, the singer, among others,) and I could see no one who seemed to notice or enjoy the lovely scenery we were passing through. ”

“ This is especially true in England, where147 men and women can have the most exquisite manners in the world, though they can also have the most execrable. The merits of the English “gentleman” have been celebrated often enough: his praise is justified when he truly lives up to his proud title. The one supreme test of a gentleman is his possession of good manners: gentle birth and speech, taste in dress, tolerable morality, a pliant knee, and a stout heart, all his other qualities, will not turn the scale in his favour if good manners be wanting. ”

“ Even in his own country he is the rarest of rare birds. Being born a peer, even though he can trace his tree to Noah, does not make a man a gentleman--you bet that it does not. I believe that an English gentleman is a caprice, an accident. ”

“ Here he put off the gown and wig of a barrister, and played the part of a country gentleman. He rode about accompanied by his children and his friends, and followed by his dogs. He fished, and walked, and learned to know every one around, high and low. He was beloved by all the countryside, for he was kindly and courteous to all, and was "aye the gentleman." He would sit and talk with a poor man in his cottage, listening to his tales of long ago, with the same ease and friendliness as he would entertain the great in his own beautiful house. ”

“ Among the ladies of "gentle blood," however, there is more of the asserted aristocratic symmetry and beauty than among the men.
The general stiffness of English manners has often been noted. Not that a gentleman is aught but a gentleman anywhere, but courtesy is certainly not the Englishman's best point. No where else will a perplexed stranger inquiring his way receive more surly answers or oftener be refused any answer at all than in London. Even the policeman who is paid to direct you, replies to your inquiry with the shortest and gruffest monosyllable that will do. ”

“ You leave one city, and, in many cases, you will not meet an educated or cultivated individual until you arrive at another—all between is utter intellectual barrenness. The English country gentleman, we all know, is not a faultless character, but his useful qualities far prevail over his defects ”

“ He has far more of the characteristics of a gentleman than of the other qualities. The qualities which go to make a "gentleman," even in the English sense, are many and complex; but the assumption is that they are all present in the man who bears the public school and university stamp. The Englishman is accustomed to accept the presence or absence of one or a few of those qualities in an individual as evidence of the presence or absence of them all. ”

“ One must live, and to live like a gentleman by honest toil, and devote one's leisure instead of one's life to poetry, is the better part. Meanwhile, England jogs along quite comfortably. She can get Keats for a shilling, and Shakespeare for sixpence. Why should she worry herself for a moment with the new men? ”

“ The English country-loving gentleman to whom we have been referring is, for the most part, of a widely different mould—a man of first-rate education, frequently of high attainments, and often one whose ends and aims in life are for far higher things than pleasure, even of the most innocent kind, but who, when he takes it, derives it chiefly from the country. ”

“ The life within is the ideally tranquil existence of an English country gentleman. Where did this cosmopolite, who really has no English roots, learn the system? For the hospitality of England can scarcely be translated with full flavor into any other idiom. ”

“ We will even make bold to inform them that a great many French ladies are so particular as to carry about a supply of bedroom towels with them when they travel.
[Pg 9]
CHAPTER II. JOHN BULL UP TO DATE.
Would you know what an Englishman is—let him be a duke's son, officer in Her Majesty's service, student, schoolboy, clerk, shopboy, gentleman, or street rough?
Well, an Englishman is a lusty fellow, fearless, hardy, and strong-knit, iron-muscled, and mule-headed, who, rather than let go a ball that he holds firmly in his arms, will perform feats of valor ”